Around the world for almost ten years, Phil Pringle has been promoting his 20/20 Vision. While we do not believe this vision is from God, we think it is necessary to see if Phil Pringle is indeed fulfilling the vision that ‘God’ gave him.

In this article we wish to document Pringle’s emphasis of PLANTING churches by the year 2020. We apologise to readers in advance if what is stressed in this article becomes monotonous. Hopefully, you’ll understand what we’re trying to establish in articles to come.

PLANTING 1000 CHURCHES BY THE YEAR 2020?

CHC’s propaganda paper, City News reports (emphasis ours):

C3 Church International, a global movement of over 240 churches was founded by Phil Pringle.

Pringle and his wife, Christine, started C3 Church in 1980 in Sydney, Australia, today, one of the most exciting and influential churches in the Asia Pacific region. Pringle’s 2020 vision is to plant 1,000 churches in 15 regions by the year 2020. This has resulted in a global movement of vibrant churches, which have been birthed as a result of his leadership and vision. Today, Pringle maintains an uncompromised passion to see cities changed by a contemporary, relevant and anointed church.

Last held in Hawaii in 2005 with an attendance of 1,100 people, the conference is part of the C3 Church movement started by Phil and Christine Pringle, senior ministers at C3 Church Oxford Falls, in Sydney, Australia. Its vision, termed “Vision 2020” is to see 1,000 churches planted by the year 2020 with an average attendance of 500 members.

Through Vision 2020, the C3 movement has grown from 71 churches in 2000 to over 300 today; from five nations in 2000 to 35 nations today, riding on an escalating momentum of revival around the world.”

In 1980, a young couple from New Zealand arrived in Sydney with their family and the vision to start a church.

Ps. Phil and Chris Pringle held their first service with just 12 people attending, but by the mid 1980’s it had grown to over 500 people. They began to start other churches and soon independent churches also joined. As the number grew, the collection of churches became known as the Christian City Church movement (now called C3 Church).

Initially C3 began planting churches around Sydney but then expanded across Australia and then the world. Currently, C3 Church has over 230 churches worldwide – in Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific Region, Asia, Africa, Europe and North & South America.

The 2020 Vision is to plant and grow 1000 churches and C3 understands that to achieve this it must connect people to God, connect people to people and empower people for effective, joyful service.

Our History

C3 ChurchinRaleigh is a part of C3 Church International, a global movement of churches started by Ps. Phil and Christine Pringle, with a vision to build 1,000 vibrant local churches with an average membership of 500 by the year 2020.

We believe in faith, hope and love, a bright, colorful, positive and encouraging church atmosphere
a church that the unchurched are attracted to, filled with music, light, supernatural happenings,
vision, purpose, loving people, and great preaching.

We are irreverent, risky, fun, conservative, serious and holy.
We love people. We love each other. We really love God, and He loves us.

The above blurb helps us identify what C3 means by ‘plant’ when they say that Phil and Chris Pringle had “a vision to build 1,000 vibrant local churches”. The concept that is being articulated is similar to a seed. You plant a seed in the ground and it grows or builds up over time. Likewise, Pringle’s ‘vision’ gives people the idea that C3 plants a few people in a particular location and over time it grows or builds up to be a church. This concept is important for our readers to grasp.

Similar information is recorded on the C3 Winchcombe website:

“C3 Church Winchcombe is a part of C3 Church Global, an international movement of churches started by Ps. Phil and Christine Pringle, with a vision to build 1,000 vibrant local churches with an average membership of 500 by the year 2020.” – Let’s Introduce Ourselves, http://www.c3winchcombe.org.uk/about.html, Accessed 10/01/2012.

We can conclude that there is a template for other C3 churches to use on their websites, communicating that the Pringle’s want to plant and build 1,000 churches by the year 2020.

If we now go to the c3iglobal website we read the following,

“Our vision for C3 Church is to see 1000 Churches planted by the year 2020 with an average attendance of 500 members.” – 2020 Vision, C3 Church Global, http://c3churchglobal.com/cms/2020-vision. (Accessed 14/06/2013.)

Phil Pringle says in his personal bio on his very own C3 Church Oxford Falls website,

“My wife, Chris and I, with the kids and some good friends came to Sydney in 1980 to start a church. We had 13 people at our first service but the congregation grew rapidly and we moved buildings, bought land and built a school. We began planting churches around Sydney, then Australia, then the world; we now have close to 300 congregations in our movement. Our 2020 Vision is to plant and grow 1000 churches and we’re on target to meet this.” – About Phil & Chris Pringle, http://www2.myc3church.net/category/about-phil-chris-pringle, Accessed 30/07/2013. (Emphasis added.)

The C3ChurchGlobal website states:

“C3 Church is a place for life development. Our aim is to maximize people’s potential and help them live their best life.

Our vision is that the Church glows with the Glory of God, that men and women become disciples of Christ, and that they encounter the Presence of the Holy Spirit—they find LIFE!

This is an exciting time for C3 Church. We have a global view and perspective. We know who we are and where we’re going. Jesus said, “I will build my church.” The one Kingdom that will endure and has endured is the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. Our true north is the salvation of lost people.

We will continue to plant churches all over the world so God can be found and lives transformed for eternity. By the year 2020, we will see 1000 C3 Churches in cities all over the world.

There is a lot of stuff that is wrong in the above statement which we will hopefully address in another article. However, it is emphasised again that Pringle wants to 1000 C3 Churches all over the world. His 2020 Vision is about PLANTING churches. Not rebranding churches, not converting a person who feels they have a church inside them.

Pringle has centered his C3 movement identity around the vision God gave him of ‘planting’ 1000 C3 Churches. If this is the vision God gave Pringle, you would expect Pringle to remain faithful to it right? Our next article will demonstrate that Pringle has been purposely deceptive about his 2020 Vision campaign.

We will end with what Phil Pringle says on his official Facebook page:

About

The official page for Phil Pringle.This page will not ask for any form of donation.If you receive a solicitation, pls contact rebekah.faith@myc3church.net

Biography

Phil Pringle is the Founder and President of C3 Church International, a global movement of over 240 churches, and the Senior Minister of C3 Church in Sydney Australia. Phil and his wife, Christine, started C3 Church in 1980 and it is now one of the fastest growing, exciting and powerful churches in Australia. An entire global movement of vibrant churches has been birthed as a result of Phil’s lead…ership and vision as he maintains an uncompromised passion to see cities changed by a contemporary, relevant and anointed church. Phil’s dynamic and relevant preaching has made him a much sought after speaker in both Christian and secular contexts, particularly in the areas of faith, leadership, ministry of the Holy Spirit, church building and kingdom principles of finance and giving.

My wife, Chris and I, with the kids and some good friends came to Sydney from New Zealand in 1980 to start a church. We had 13 people at our first service but the congregation grew rapidly and we moved buildings, bought land and built a school. We began planting churches around Sydney, then Australia, then the world; we now have close to 300 congregations in our movement. Our 2020 Vision is to plant and grow 1000 churches and we’re on target to meet this!

We’ve started C3 College for Ministry, Creative Arts and Counselling, as well as a television program and Oxford Falls Grammar School, all on around 25 acres at Oxford Falls.

I’ve always been passionate about the arts playing a major role in church to make her contemporary and relevant to the current world. Our Creative Arts stream has developed and graduated thousands of musicians, worship leaders, song writers, graphic artists, dancers, actors and film makers. I myself paint and exhibit around the world. I also love to write, so I’ve mixed these two elements together in books like Inspired to Pray, But God and 24 Hours That Saved The World – The Gospel of John in Art. My other books include Faith, Moving in the Spirit, Leadership Excellence, Financial Excellence, Leadership Files and You the Leader.

My great love is the local church. I believe she is the hope of our world today. When she functions in the power of the Holy Spirit and lives on the Word she will thrive. See you in Church!

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12 thoughts on “Prophet Pringle’s God-Given 2020 Vision Lie (Part 1)”

potato pringle’s 20/20 vision, along with con hee hee hee and geisha ho ‘s cross over (which is a total misuse of God’s Word) IS NOT FROM GOD. THEY ARE NOTHING MORE THAN A QUEST FOR WORLDY SUCCESS, POWER, AND MONEY TO FEED THEIR OVERINFLATED EGOS.

I agree there are many erroneous statement in what Phil Pringle says here. He is clearly not describing Christian churches. It is a truly diabolical scheme…the false church plant. It would appear that there is a massive push to spread the false gospel far and wide. Not surprisingly, since they (ie. WOF, NAR, emergent, PDL) all seem to channeling the same spirit/s, they are getting the same ‘vision’ to chruch plant, even if it is couched in their own idionsynractic, familiar language. It seems more like a cancerous franchising scheme to me.

Despite cries of ‘yes, but we are leading many people to Christ’, we know that cannot be true. The testimonies here at C3CW are but a fraction of the multitude around the world who can attest to the fact that they realize now that they were never led to the real Jesus Christ, or preached the true Gospel in these churches. Is Christ, through his most Holy Spirit leading some to himself (which is actually how it works) within (and despite) these false churches? Absolutely! Can unregenerate man lead people to Christ in the absence of preaching the true Gospel? I can’t find evidence of this in my Bible.

CW, I thought your readers might enjoy this article on the ‘humblebrag’:

We’ve established through multiple legitimate sources that traditionally Chris’s ‘God’ given goal is to plant 1000 churches all over the world / 15 regions by 2020.
According to his Facebook profile he now wishes to go beyond simply planting, and focus on growing these churches also.

Interested to see where you’re going with this. Thanks for providing all the references.

Separately, can you explain what “converting a person who feels they have a church inside them” means?
Is it that C3 is unwilling to assimilate other church planters who are outside the C3 movement into it’s church body? And if so, are you able to provide references to back this up? That would be very interesting to read.

It would be interesting to know exactly how many churches Pringle actually folded into the C3 group and what the rationale was for those churches and their pastors to do so. Having said that I can understand the attraction of being behind a single large brand (as there were a fair number of “independent” pentecostal churches in Australia in the 80’s) and all the things that go with that (“credibility”, marketing, financing etc). I suspect it would be fairly high proportion early on in the movement and deals must have surely been done. Subsequently it appears larger congregations spun off pastors or wannabe pastors (as there was not enough room in the tent) to various suburbs in the same city, taking some congregation with them. I’m not sure if that still counts as a “plant”?

Look forward to it, they’re not great at transparency. There is a Policy Document from 2010 floating around on the net which I’ve started reading but it’s so badly written that “good governance” doesn’t exactly spring to mind from what I’ve read so far. I do wonder if congregations know that 3% of their tithes goes to some kind of “C3 Church levy”, I’m assuming from that it moves upstream. I might be reading it incorrectly but it looks like some sort of ponzi scheme where if you have a regional church and a number of other ones are “planted” in the same region, levies flow back to the regional church (and hence a proportion back to Pringle if you follow it up). These levies look like they’re meant to partially finance conferences but then again so many “miracle offerings” are collected during those it’s not like they’re not going to break even!

“Subsequently it appears larger congregations spun off pastors or wannabe pastors (as there was not enough room in the tent) to various suburbs in the same city,”

oh yes my wordy I agree with you here. I have seen some good plants and some plants that i question why they started it? for outreach in a swanky suburb like hollywood? I mean if The Lord doesnt build it they labor in vein right?
as for the Ponzi scheme – I think you would be very right there. i have it on very good authoritar that this happens. very good authoritar as almost coming from a pastors mouth. but hey, don’t take my word for it, why not rock on your ol bones up to your local c3 pastor or pasta if your Italian and ask them

Pringle is a wolf in disguise. I am beginning to think that he, Kong Hee and others like them truly believe in giving one to get ten, thirty or hundred fold. Indeed they are proof of such belief themselves – see the riches of their life styles. But it is the sneaky devil himself who have deceived and blessed them with wealth extorted from foolish congregations, for being his servants to perpetuate this lie.

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